In this penetrating study the author asserts that Western understanding of the Russian revolutions of 1917 has been consistently clouded by failure to comprehend the internal and external pressures under which the Russian state and society operate. — The significance of the Russian reveolution, says Professor Von Laue, does not lie in the Bolshev... more »ik victory but in the struggle for modernization in politics and industrial production, the need to take pride in native achievement, and the desire to replace the West as a model for emerging nations. WHY LENIN? WHY STALIN? provides a chronological outline of modern Russian history, beginning with the first industrial boom in the 1890's and continuing through Stalin's first Five Year Plan. As a study in comparative history, it illuminates the immense and unbroken superiority of Western power, not only political and military, but psychological as well.« less